Been wanting to do this for a while. This past week has been many from our very early history, long before our founding fathers brought forth a new Republic.

But I'm not always on time nor will I become a slave to anything or any person... That said, lets begin.
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Saturday, August 01st
The 213th day of 2009.
There are 152 days left in the year.
Go to a previous date.

On this date in:

1790 The first U.S. census was completed, showing a population of nearly 4 million people. We sure grew

1876 Colorado was admitted to the union as the 38th state.

1914 Germany declared war on Russia at the onset of World War I.

1942 Rock musician Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead was born in San Francisco.

1943 Race-related rioting erupted in New York City's Harlem section, resulting in several deaths.

1944 An uprising broke out in Warsaw, Poland, against Nazi occupation.

1957 The United States and Canada reached agreement to create the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD).

1966 Charles Joseph Whitman shot and killed 14 people at the University of Texas before he was gunned down by police. What most people don't know he visited with 5 doctors 4 who gave him meds. The shrink noted he was very hostile yet the military was suppressing P.T.S.D. early on in the Viet-Nam war till about 20 years later. And as we know it doesn't take long to become the problem

1978 Pete Rose's 44-game hitting streak -- the second longest in major league history -- came to an end as the Cincinnati Reds star went hitless in a game against the Atlanta Braves.

Click here for Famous Birthdays for this day.
Click here for Music history for this day.

1498 - Christopher Columbus landed on "Isla Santa" (Venezuela).

1619 - The first black Americans (20) land at Jamestown, VA.

1774 - Oxygen was isolated from air successfully by chemist Carl Wilhelm and scientist Joseph Priestly.

1779 - Francis Scott Key was born. He was an American composer, attorney, poet, and social worker. He was the composer of the poem "Defence of Fort McHenry" which later became known as the "Star-Spangled Banner."

1790 - The first U.S. census was completed with a total population of 3,929,214 recorded. The areas included were the present states of Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia

1818 - Maria Mitchell was born. She was the first female professional astronomer and the first women to be elected into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

1834 - Slavery was outlawed in the British empire with an emancipation bill.

1934: The United States Court of Appeals rules that James Joyce's novel "Ulysses" is not obscene and may be brought into the U.S.
Learn more about censorship.

1941: Rabindranath Tagore, the Indian poet, songwriter, philosopher and advocate for independence who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, dies at the age of 80.
Learn more about Rabindranath Tagore.

1942: United States Marines land at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands, making the first U.S. assault on Japanese positions in the Pacific Ocean. U.S. forces finally capture the island in February 1943.
Learn more about World War II.

1947: In a re-creation of a possible prehistoric migration, Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl lands his balsa raft, the Kon-Tiki, on a Polynesian island after a journey from Peru.
Learn more about Thor Heyerdahl.

1961: Soviet cosmonaut Gherman Titov completes 17 orbits of the Earth in 25.5 hours in Vostok 2, becoming the first person to spend more than a day in space.
Learn more about space exploration.

1964: After two reported North Vietnamese attacks on U.S. warships, the U.S. Congress approves the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving President Lyndon Johnson the power to launch the Vietnam War.
Learn more about the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

2007: Barry Bonds breaks Hank Aaron's career home run record, but for many the new mark is compromised due to Bonds' alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs.
Learn more about performance-enhancing drugs.

On Aug. 8, 1896, Marjorie Rawlings, the American author of the Pulitzer-Prize winning book "The Yearling", was born. Following her death on Dec. 14, 1953, her obituary appeared in The Times. (Go to obit. | Other Birthdays)

On August 8, 1903, Harper's Weekly featured a cartoon about lynching and mob violence against black Americans. (See the cartoon and read an explanation.)

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On this date in:

1815 Napoleon Bonaparte set sail for St. Helena, in the South Atlantic, to spend the remainder of his days in exile.

1844 Brigham Young was chosen to lead the Mormons following the killing of Joseph Smith.

1876 Thomas A. Edison received a patent for the mimeograph.

1942 Six convicted Nazi saboteurs who had landed in the United States were executed in Washington, D.C.

1945 President Harry S. Truman signed the United Nations Charter.

1945 The Soviet Union declared war against Japan during World War II.

1953 The United States and South Korea initialed a mutual security pact.

1963 Britain's "Great Train Robbery" took place as thieves made off with 2.6 million pounds in banknotes.

1968 Richard M. Nixon was nominated for president at the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach and chose Maryland Gov. Spiro T. Agnew to be his running mate.

1973 Vice President Spiro T. Agnew branded as "damned lies" reports he had taken kickbacks from government contracts in Maryland and vowed not to resign.

1978 The United States launched Pioneer Venus II, which carried scientific probes to study the atmosphere of Venus.

1988 U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar announced a cease-fire between Iran and Iraq.

2005 Iran resumed work at a uranium conversion facility after suspending activities for nine months to avoid U.N. sanctions.

2006 Sen. Joseph Lieberman lost the Connecticut Democratic primary to political newcomer Ned Lamont. (Lieberman won re-election to the Senate by running as an independent).

2008 The Summer Olympic Games opened in Beijing.

2008 Former Democratic presidential candidate and vice-presidential nominee John Edwards admitted having an extramarital affair. Gee a Dem doing it.............lol

1921 Franklin D. Roosevelt was stricken with polio at his summer home on the Canadian island of Campobello.

1944 American forces overcame Japanese resistance on Guam during World War II.

1949 The National Military Establishment was renamed the Department of Defense.

1969 Leno and Rosemary LaBianca were murdered in their Los Angeles home by members of Charles Manson's cult, one day after actress Sharon Tate and four other people were slain.

1988 President Ronald Reagan signed a measure providing $20,000 payments to Japanese-Americans interred by the U.S. government during World War II.

1993 Ruth Bader Ginsburg was sworn in as the second female Supreme Court justice.

1994 President Bill Clinton claimed presidential immunity in asking a federal judge to dismiss, at least for the time being, a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by Paula Jones, a former Arkansas state employee.

1995 Norma McCorvey, "Jane Roe" in the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, announced she had joined the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue.

2003 Atlanta Braves shortstop Rafael Furcal turned the 12th unassisted triple play in major league history against the St. Louis Cardinals.

2006 British authorities announced they had thwarted a terrorist plot to simultaneously blow up 10 aircraft heading to the United States.

2008 American swimmer Michael Phelps won the first of his record eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics by winning the 400-meter individual medley in 4:03.84, smashing his own world record.